It is odd to say that I stumbled onto this topic by simply waking up one morning but that is the actual way it began.\u00a0 More precisely, it began with a half-awake, half-witted attempt to listen to the morning show that my wife and I favor.\u00a0 The topics include a smattering of current national politics interspersed with interesting local stories, human interest tales, and other items meant to amuse or outrage or otherwise energize the listener to a brand new day.<\/p>\n
This particular day, only about a week ago, one of the hosts was reveling in the scientific study that concluded that paper towels in public restrooms were the best choice for hygiene.\u00a0 The show was flooded with numerous callers all clearly falling into one of two camps: those for paper towels and those for hand dryers.\u00a0 There seemed to be no middle ground.\u00a0 Suddenly I was aware of a great and terrible debate that had been raging all around me to which I was hideous oblivious \u2013 the paper towel wars.<\/p>\n
It seems that the argument over which method was best is so pervasive that all one needs to do is to start typing<\/p>\n
to get a Bing's or Google's autocomplete to immediately come back with<\/p>\n
And judging by the articles that turn up, this debate has stewed for some time and it is typically very polarizing with most people pitching their loyalty with one side (hand dyers) or the other (paper towels).\u00a0 Sharp are the lines between these two camps and strong are the passionate claims that each makes about the advantages it has over the other.<\/p>\n
Consider the pro paper towel camp.\u00a0 Washington Post contributor Alexandra Petri minces no words (The paper towel-hand dryer wars are over<\/a>) when it comes to the paper towel side.\u00a0 She likens the clash between the two camps to the old feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys and claims that, at least in this case, the \u201ccorrect team has won.\u201d\u00a0 Citing the 2012 Mayo Clinic study entitled The Hygienic Efficacy of Different Hand-Drying Methods: A Review of the Evidence<\/a>, Petri gleefully brings \u2018science\u2019 in to support the conclusion that paper towels are the correct choice.\u00a0 In her reading, hand dryers are ineffective and unhygienic and near the close of her article, she presents this gem of a paragraph<\/p>\n To bolster the pro-paper case even more, News Max reported a follow-on story in June of 2015 entitled Paper Towels vs Air Dryer: Which Gets Rid of More Hand Germs?<\/a> Citing Dr. Philip Teirno, a professor of microbiology and pathology at the New York School of Medicine, the article concluded that paper towels offer a better alternative to hand dryers since the direct contact friction is an essential ingredient in eliminating germs from the hands after washing.<\/p>\n But the pro hand drying camp is not without its scientific studies, which conclude, oddly enough, that hand dryers are the correct choice.\u00a0 RestroomDirect, a company specializing in the distribution of hand dryers and commercial restroom cleaning supplies asks Which is better in a commercial restroom?\u00a0 Hand dryers or paper towels?<\/a>\u00a0 They present a strong, and no less scientific, argument that hand dryers are far more energy and resource efficient thus making them better for the environment.\u00a0 Hand dryers are also far less expensive to operate meaning that businesses can put additional resources towards more important things. \u00a0To add fuel to the fire, there is also a scientific study from the University of Buffalo (Paper towels fold in study versus hand dryers<\/a> 6\/14\/14) that concludes that paper towel dispensers are actually far more unhygienic than hand dryers.<\/p>\n To make matters even more confusing there is even a YouTube video that attempts to scientifically weigh in with the pros and cons of both approaches<\/p>\n